Friday 15 January 2010

Gedeeltelike sonverduistering oor Bloemfontein (15 Januarie 2010)



Partial Solar Eclipse: Bloemfontein, South Africa - 15 January 2009

Sunspot 1040 clearly visible. It is a member of new Solar Cycle 24

Camera: Canon 30D
Exposure: 100 ISO; 1/1000 @ F25
Filter: Baader Solar Photo filter
Lens: 300mm X 1.6 (480mm) (Canon 70 - 300mm Zoom)
Time: 15/01/2009 (07:30)
Software: Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop CS4

Location: Bloemfontein, South Africa
Weather conditions: Good, Sunny,  no clouds during exposure
Photographer: Hannes Pieterse


Tuesday 12 January 2010

Gedeeltelike sonverduistering Vrydag, 15 Januarie.


Net so `n katspoegie van `n verduistering. Die enigste vir 2010 hier in die Suide. Op die voorstelling wat met TheSky 6 gemaak is kan mens sien hoe die gedeeltelike verduistering Vrydag om 07:30 gaan lyk. Dit begin om 06:58, bereik sy maksimum om 07:30 en eindig om 07:59. Venus is regs bo in die prentjie.

Monday 11 January 2010

2010 ASSA Symposium




The Pretoria branch of ASSA is proud to announce the dates for the Southern African Eighth biennial Symposium of the ASSA.  The symposium will take place at the Silverton campus of the Council for Geoscience on Thursday 7 October 2010 and Friday 8 October 2010.  The preliminary program for Saturday includes a morning visit to HartRAU and a guided tour through the Tswaing meteorite impact crater during the afternoon.


The symposium will focus on light/spectrum pollution and people interested in delivering papers are invited to send a short synopsis to Andrie van der Linde at andrie@eridanusoptics.com.  You can also make a preliminary booking if you plan to attend.


Details on registration fees and suggestions for accommodation, etc will be available soon.


Regards


Andrie van der Linde

Is die seisoen vir Sonvlekke hier? Het die gety gedraai?


Sunspot 1040 is busy growing again. In only 24 hours, it has expanded from a barely visible "sun-speck" to a planet-sized active region with 15 dark cores and a tangled magnetic field. Steve Riegel sends this picture from his backyard observatory in Santa Maria, California.

More info: spaceweather.com

Moenie oor Vrystaat se koue kla nie!



 So het die Britse Eilande op 7 Januarie op `n hoogte van 420 myl gelyk.

Kliek hier vir meer inligting

Friday 11 December 2009

2009 SA Science Lens winners announced!



The entries in this year's SA Science Lens competition represented a wide range of science areas and many techniques were used to capture them, from state-of-the-art electron microscopes to digital and standard cameras. View the winning entries!

Thursday 26 November 2009

Meteoor! O, Meteoor!

So ver as Kimberley, Reitz en dan natuurlik verder Noord het mense hierdie vuurbal gesien. `n Muur het self gekraak na die impak op die grond. Iewers by 'n wildplaas. Vir ander het die ding net hier agter die koppie geval.

Gaan loer gerus op Auke Slotegraaf se webtuiste na die videos wat tot nou beskikbaar is. Ook wat die ouens sê wat hierdie ongelooflike gebeurtenis waargeneem het.

Die webadres: Klik hier

(Ek is groen van jaloesie.)

Groete

Hannes Pieterse

Monday 16 November 2009

Leonid Meteor shower + Komeet 88P/Howell



 Komeet 88P/Howell in Sagittarius


Leonid Meteor shower

Vir die ouens wat snags wakker lê. Laat weet gerus of julle iets gesien het! 

This month is the time to look out for the Leonid Meteor shower. Maximum number of meteors per hour is expected on the 17th to 18th. Conditions are expected to be favourable and particularly dark, since this will be only a few days after new moon. As the name indicates, the radiant of the meteor shower will be located in the constellation of Leo. The radiant is the point in the sky from which all the meteors appear to originate from. Meteors, or more commonly called “shooting stars”, are small particles of space dust and debris that enter our atmosphere at high speeds, and burn up due to heat generated by air friction. For keen and enthusiastic observers, the radiant of the shower will be up above the horizon from about 03:00 to 04:00 in the mornings. (Source: The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO)

Stay up late or get up early this morning to catch the Leonids. Each year we pass through the
filaments—both old and new—of Comet Tempel–Tuttle’s debris, and the chances of encountering a
particular stream from any particular year becomes a matter of mathematical estimates. We know
when it passed. . . We know where it passed. . . But will we encounter it and to what extent?
(Source: The Night Sky Companion)



Loer gerus op die Blog (regs bo) vir al die waarnemingshulp ens

Komeet 88P/Howell

Ek het die komeet Saterdagaand so 20:30 deur die stad se ligbesoedeling in die Weste vanaf Boyden opgespoor. Baie dof, maar sigbaar.  As jy `n kaart wil hê om dit op te spoor kan jy vir my e-pos stuur. Sal vir jou `n pdf-kaart stuur.

Hier is inligting oor die komeet.
On this night 88P/Howell is best visible between 19:55 and 20:17, with the optimum view at 20:15. Look for it in Sagittarius, fairly high in the sky during evening twilight. It is detectable visually in the Orion SkyQuest XT10 Dob. Use the Ultima 42mm for optimum visual detection. It is magnitude 9.3 with a diameter of 5.1'.

In the following 30 days this object is detectable visually from November 17-26, and again from December 3 on, with the best view coming on November 17. During this period it will fade by about 0.8 magnitudes and will remain constant in altitude.

88P/Howell will next reach perihelion in mid April 2015. It also is predicted to reach maximum brightness of magnitude 9 in mid April. The best visibility from Bloemfontein, South Africa near maximum brightness is predicted to be in mid April when it will be approximately magnitude 9. At that time it will be in Aquarius, fairly high in the sky during morning twilight and will be detectable in the Orion SkyQuest XT10 Dob. The previous perihelion was mid October 2009. Note that the magnitude and visibility of a comet can be very unpredictable.

Groete

Hannes Pieterse

Sunday 1 November 2009

Measuring The Sky (One-Minute Astronomer)


The Basics

• Astronomers measure angular separation of objects in degrees. There are 360 degrees in a circle. And the angular separation of any point on the horizon and the point directly overhead (the zenith) is 90 degrees. Halfway from the zenith to the horizon is 45 degrees. So far, so good.
• Smaller angles are a little trickier. But your hands and fingers are a remarkably accurate (and convenient) measuring tool. When you hold your hand at arm’s length, you can estimate angles like this:
- Stretch your thumb and little finger as far from each other as you can. The span from tip to tip is about 25 degrees
- Do the same with your index finger and little finger. The span is 15 degrees
- Clench your fist at arms length, and hold it with the back of your hand facing you. The width is 10 degrees
- Hold your three middle fingers together; they span about 5 degrees
- The width of your little finger at arms length is 1 degree.


A Deeper Look

• Now let’s go smaller. When you look through a telescope, you see a field of view of 1 degree or less… a very small slice of sky.
• Astronomers measure angles smaller than 1 degree in arcminutes, or “minutes of arc”. There are 60 arcminutes in one degree, so 1 arcminute is 1/60 degree. The symbol for arcminutes is ‘. So the full Moon, for example, is about 30′ (thirty arcminutes) across. Coincidentally, so is the Sun.
• Each arcminute is divided into 60 arcseconds, or “seconds of arc”. So 1 arcsecond is 1/60 arcminute and 1/3600 degree. The symbol for arcseconds is “. The face of Jupiter, which you can see this summer, is about 50″ across. The two components of the double star alpha Herculi are 4.6″ apart. A good optical telescope in steady skies can resolve down to about 1″ (one arcsecond).

Source:Visit  One-Minute Astronomer

Tuesday 20 October 2009

Centaur vuurpyl laat die mense reg oor Suid Afrika en Europa wonder (UFO?)




Photo: Federico and Chiara Bellini of Bodio Lomnago, Italy.


Sondagaand het `n klomp sterrekykers na hulle kameras gegryp en hierdie vreemde verskynsel afgeneem.


UFO het die mense op OFM die plaaslike radiostasie in Bloemfontein gesê. Die kenners het natuurlik met die antwoord gekom:


Gaan loer gerus by hierdie webwerwe wat werklik gebeur het. Ongelooflik.


`n Plaaslike webwerf met sekerlik die beste foto's: Klik hier


Ook by Spaceweather kan jy gaan loer: Klik hier  en beweeg af op die blad



Prof Matie Hoffman van die Fisika Departement by die UV gesels Donderdagaand  om 20:30 met Hennie Maas op Sterre en Planete oor die verskynsel.